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Biography

Tobias van de Locht was born in Duisbourg/West Germany in 1975 and grew up on the Lower Rhine where he started to learn the piano and concert flute from a very young age. He was also educated in harmony, counterpoint and composition at County Music School Viersen, and he played the flute in several youth orchestras. After graduating from Thomaeum High School Kempen in 1994, he studied piano and conducting at the Robert Schumann Conservatorium Düsseldorf and received also a Master of Business Administration degree from the European Management Academy Paris. He attended master classes in choir conducting with Eric Ericson (Stockholm), organ with Daniel Roth (Paris) and film music with John Frizzell (Los Angeles). He participated in student exchange programmes in Vancouver, Chicago and Manchester. During the season 2002/03 he was assistant to the Gürzenich-Orchester (Cologne Philharmonic), and in 2003/04 to the Dortmund Symphony Orchestra with whom he appeared in children´s concerts. In 2004 he took over the musical direction of the Metropole Orchestra and recorded several film and TV soundtracks with them (Das Geheimnis der Schauspielkunst), and in 2008 he was also appointed Music Director of the Sinfonia Düsseldorf. He has held the same position at the Kaarst Chamber Orchestra since 2009. From 2004 until 2007 he lived in Beauvais/France where he worked for Mstislav Rostropovich´s Cello Festival. He now lives in Germany again and follows a busy schedule as conductor, composer, orchestrator and scholar. Among the orchestras he worked with are the Cologne and Hamburg Philharmonic, Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg, Junges Orchester Dresden and the Segeberg and Wandsbek Symphony Orchestras. He also co-produced DVD editions of British TV series such as Department S and works regularly as professor, for example at the Filmhochschule Kassel, LernOrtStudio Düsseldorf, Kurt Tucholsky School Cologne und Musikschule Kaarst. From 1999 until 2006 he worked with his mentor, composer Sir Malcolm Arnold (The Bridge on the River Kwai), and since 2006 with Howard Blake, whose The Snowman he conducted many times, as well as in November 2008 the Chor-, Big-Band- und Orchestergala to celebrate Howard´s 70th birthday. Tobias was Composer-in-Residence and Conductor at the 2010 Alpine Music Festival of Austria. From 2012 until 2015 he served as Music Director of the Sinfonia Koenigswinter (near Bonn). In 2016 he was appointed Music Director of the Witten Symphony Orchestra.

Please have a look to Tobias´s work list, the news (for example upcoming performances), photo and press galleries. Not every information is available in English but please do not hesitate to contact Tobias.